UC salary criticisms fuel student protests

Jan. 8, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 12:28 p.m.

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Danielle Morabito, a fifth-year cognitive psychology major at UCI, chants anti-UC Board of Regents slogans and holds a sign during an Occupy Wall Street-style rally in front of UCI's Aldrich Hall administration building in November 2011. BY JOSHUA SUDOCK, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Ralph V. Clayman, dean for the UC Irvine School of Medicine, grossed $464,000 in 2010. He was one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Terry A. Belmont, CEO and associate vice chancellor for medical affairs for the UCI Medical Center, grossed $743,937 in 2010, making him the top paid official among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Michael V. Drake, chancellor of UC Irvine, grossed $374,969 in 2010. He was one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Irvine's School of Law, grossed $326,667 in 2010. He was one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Andrew J. Policano, dean for the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine, grossed $314,988 in 2010, making him one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Michael R. Gottfredson, executive vice chancellor and provost for UC Irvine, grossed $290,316 in 2010. He was one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Albert Bennett, dean for UC Irvine's School of Biological Sciences, grossed $266,667 in 2010, making him one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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John C. Hemminger, a UC Irvine chemistry professor, was appointed vice chancellor for research in November 2010. He grossed $255,433 in 2010, making him one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Rafael L. Bras, a prominent hydrologist and hydroclimatologist, served as dean of UC Irvine's Henry Samueli School of Engineering through July 2010. He grossed $252,319 that year, making him one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Dimitri Papamoschou was appointed dean of UC Irvine's Henry Samueli School of Engineering in August 2010. He grossed $229,449 that year, making him one of the 10 top paid officials among UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Daniel G. Aldrich III, pictured with wife Elaine, is UC Irvine's vice chancellor for university advancement. He grossed $222,672 in 2010 and is one of UCI's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Herbert P. Killackey is UC Irvine's vice provost for academic personnel. He grossed $216,200 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Sue Bryant is UC Irvine's vice chancellor for research. She grossed $216,046 in 2010 and is one of the 30 highest-ranking UCI administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Meredith Michaels is UC Irvine's vice chancellor for planning and budget. She grossed $211,894 in 2010 and is one of the 30 highest-ranking university administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Wendell C. Brase is UC Irvine's vice chancellor for administrative and business services. He grossed $211,124 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Not pictured in the slideshow of UC Irvine's 30 highest-ranking administrators are Diane F. Geocaris, chief campus counsel, and Susan Menning, former associate vice chancellor for strategic communications, who served in the position through June 2010. Geocaris grossed $209,662 in 2010; Menning grossed $138,426. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Vicki Ruiz is the dean for UC Irvine's School of Humanities. She grossed $208,022 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE, TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE

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Valerie Jenness, who was working as interim dean for UC Irvine's School of Social Ecology in 2010, grossed $198,895 that year. She was one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Barbara Dosher is dean of UC Irvine's School of Social Sciences. She grossed $190,513 in 2010 and is one of the 30 highest-ranking university administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Kenneth Janda is dean of UC Irvine's School of Physical Sciences. He grossed $188,509 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Michael Izzi is UC Irvine's director of intercollegiate athletics. He grossed $184,600 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Manuel Gomez is UC Irvine's vice chancellor for student affairs. He grossed $184,244 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Frances M. Leslie, a pharmacology professor, is dean of UC Irvine's Graduate Division. She grossed $183,300 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Hal S. Stern served as the acting dean for UC Irvine's Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences in 2010. He grossed $171,416 that year and was one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Michael R. Arias is UC Irvine's associate executive vice chancellor. He grossed $170,324 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Gary W. Matkin is UC Irvine's dean for continuing education, distance learning and summer session. He grossed $170,086 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Joseph Lewis is dean of UC Irvine's Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Appointed in March 2010, he grossed $169,652 that year and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Sharon V. Salinger is dean for UC Irvine's Division of Undergraduate Education. She grossed $168,134 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Michael P. Clark is UC Irvine's vice provost for academic planning. He grossed $166,140 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Thomas A. Parham served as UC Irvine's interim vice chancellor for student affairs in the second half of 2010. He was permanently named to the position in 2011. His gross salary in 2010 was $161,405. He is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Ramona Agrela is UC Irvine's associate chancellor and chief of staff. She grossed $160,898 in 2010 and is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrators. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

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Lorelei A. Tanji was working as UC Irvine's interim university librarian in 2010 and grossed $122,309 that year. She has since been promoted to the position permanently. It is one of the university's 30 highest-ranking administrative posts. TEXT BY SCOTT MARTINDALE, PHOTO COURTESY OF UC IRVINE

Danielle Morabito, a fifth-year cognitive psychology major at UCI, chants anti-UC Board of Regents slogans and holds a sign during an Occupy Wall Street-style rally in front of UCI's Aldrich Hall administration building in November 2011.BY JOSHUA SUDOCK, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Comparing UC chancellors salaries; UCI tuition 1999-12

Over the past few months, the University of California has raised undergraduate tuition by 18 percent, awarded raises of as much as 23 percent to a dozen high-ranking administrators and announced a possible 81 percent tuition increase over the next three years.

Students haven't taken the news well.

At campus rallies across the state, thousands of students and their faculty supporters have decried the actions, staging raucous rallies and "Occupy"-style sit-ins that in some cases have ended in clashes with law enforcement. They've also descended en masse on UC regents' meetings, disrupting proceedings and even forcing officials to retreat to a private room.

Behind the angry chanting and acts of civil disobedience is a growing sense that the 10-campus UC system is no longer a public institution accessible to the middle class, but rather a sprawling bureaucracy of hospitals and auxiliary research institutions buffeted by an ever-expanding roster of administrators.

The problem, as the student activists see it, is that none of these functions translates directly into expanded course offerings or improved student-to-faculty ratios, even as their tuition dollars help sustain the system.

"The university is now being run in the interest of the administration," said UC Irvine student activist Anne Kelly, a Ph.D. candidate in earth system science. "They're promoting their own internal growth, asking us to sacrifice with higher tuition – but administrators have had raises."

University officials have acknowledged the system is trying to be competitive with private universities, and must offer competitive salaries, but UC adamantly denies that student tuition is going to fund its myriad non-instructional programs. Rather, officials say, state budget cuts are behind the dramatic tuition increases of recent years.

The students' growing frustration is fueled by UC employment data that show that almost three-fourths of UC's 152,500 employees last year were designated "non-academic personnel," according to an annual UC employment report.

In the report, UC characterizes the growth in its non-academic staff as the inevitable byproduct of "an increasingly complex university system" that "requires greater professionalization of its staff, who must meet higher technical and competency standards." Non-academic personnel includes everyone from custodians and food-service workers to accountants and plant operators.

UC Davis horticulture researcher Richard Evans, who has independently analyzed UC personnel data, offered a different take on the data, publishing a tongue-in-cheek piece for UC faculty in 2010 entitled "Soon every faculty member will have a personal senior manager: Is this a good way to spend money?"

"Data available from the UC Office of the President shows that there were 2.5 faculty members for each senior manager in the UC system in 1993," Evans wrote in his piece. "Now there are as many senior managers as faculty. Just think: Each professor could have his or her personal senior manager."

In his analysis, Evans compared the number of UC employees classified as either "senior management" or "managers and senior professionals" with the number of tenure-track UC faculty members.

As of spring 2011, UC employed 8,144 senior managers, managers and senior professionals, and 8,521 tenure-track faculty members, according to the latest available UC data. (However, when counting all UC "academic staff" – from non-tenure-track faculty members and lecturers to student assistants and academic administrators – the academic personnel figure swells to 29,419.)

Evans also suggested that public support for UC system funding might improve if, for example, the president of the UC system did not earn more than the president of the United States. UC President Mark Yudof grossed $560,594 in 2010; President Obama's salary in 2010 was $395,188.

"Our effort to solve the budget problems has a greater chance for success if we first aim at something we have direct control over," Evans wrote. "... I suggest that we – administrators, faculty, staff and students – review the justification, costs, and benefits related to the explosive growth in senior management."

UC officials insist the administrative staff is growing proportionately based on the size and needs of the university, and that to single out administrators is inappropriate and unwarranted.

"They are paid far less than what they could earn in the private sector," said Klein of the UC Office of the President. "They choose to work for the university for other reasons than salary. Does that mean they should work for free? Does that mean a faculty member should be paid the same as a public high school teacher?"

PRIVATIZATION

The salaries and size of UC's administrative staff, in particular, have fueled conspiracy theories among students and faculty that the system has deliberately sought to "privatize" itself – in other words, to compete with private universities on all fronts, from the scope of its non-instructional programs to executive compensation to the amount of tuition that students pay.

Three years ago, the head of a UC faculty group advanced the privatization theory in a multi-part series called "They Pledged Your Tuition."

"UC has made no secret of its desire to raise tuition," Bob Meister, president of the Council of UC Faculty Associations and a UC Santa Cruz professor, wrote in 2009. "Under (former Gov.) Gray Davis, however, UC was still concerned that continued state funding depended on its visible reluctance to raise tuition too fast (and) that eagerness to charge what the market allowed would provoke state cuts.

"UC's long-term strategy was thus to raise tuition – which was too low anyway – in response to state cuts, so as to avoid retaliation," Meister continued, "and to do this regardless of whether higher tuition would be used to restore the losses in instruction that seemed to necessitate it."

At a campus rally in November, UC Irvine Professor Rei Terada echoed those sentiments, telling demonstrators that even before the recent economic downturn, the regents seemed intent on privatization.

"The regents claim that this is an intolerable, involuntary reality, but this is not true," said Terada, a professor of comparative literature. "... Student protest has slowed down the process of privatization, and furthermore, it is the only thing that has had an impact on privatization."

For its part, UC denies all such allegations, saying that while the university has arguably become privatized, outside influences beyond its control are entirely to blame.

"It is not something we advocate, not something we want," Klein said. But, she added, "times have changed; the economic model has changed."

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